Next Friday, 7 August, is the 67th anniversary of the amphibious assault on Guadalcanal – the first halting offensive steps in the Pacific war. This week once again, UltimaRatioRegis joins the project with a look into the background of WATCHTOWER, setting the stage for next week’s post. The following week – Savo Island. – SJS

Guadalcanal Island as seen from STS-59 (Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.")

In the aftermath of a desperate and decisive battle, those of us who look back across the years, decades, and centuries at such events, inevitably ask the question; â€śWhy there? What made that place worth the price in sweat, blood, and sacrifice?â€ť Something must have drawn the crosshairs of history to such a place, made its possession worth the titanic struggle for control.

Megiddo, the most fought-over place on earth, is a hillock that dominates the ancient Haifa road in modern-day Israel. Such a symbol is it of manâ€™s propensity for war that its very name is where scripture ascribes the end of the world to occur- Har Megiddo. Armageddon.

Gettysburgâ€™s extensive road and rail junctions were keys to Robert E. Leeâ€™s successful foray into Pennsylvania, once the Federal Army of the Potomac could be dislodged from the dominating high ground east of the town.

The terrain of Gallipoli overlooks the Dardanelles, and access to the Bosporus and the Black Sea, and was envisioned as a way to break the ghastly stalemate on the Western Front that had been consuming Europeâ€™s youth for a year.

The Battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands Campaign is no different. Except that by the Summer of 1942, it was not just what nature had made, but also what man had built, that drew the respective armies and navies into the fiery maelstrom that churned the jungle and the waters around them some sixty-seven years ago. As author Eric Hammel states; â€śThere was no reason inherent in the value of the Bismarcks and the Solomons that made them worth a fight. Only a confluence of events would make them a focal point for a desperate gamble.â€ť(1)

…continued

Solomon Islands

Those events began in the immediate wake of the First World War. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, who commanded the Grand Fleet at Jutland and became Governor-General of New Zealand, conducted an inspection tour of the Empireâ€™s Pacific Dominions in 1919. Among the places which caught the Admiralâ€™s eye as an important element to the defense of Australia was a magnificent natural harbor on the small island of Tulagi, tucked in the Sealark Channel in the southern Solomon Island chain.(2) However, in the post-war Empire, large expenditures in preparation for the next war were not among the priorities of the weary and battered British government. So, aside from the commercial exploitation of this area of what was still the British Solomons, no military preparation of the harbor at Tulagi took place.

In the 1930s, Japan began a secret effort to build fortified bases in the Caroline and Marshall Islands, in direct contravention of the Mandate that ceded them to her from a defeated Germany in 1918. Truk, the massive Japanese Navy base in the Caroline Islands, was a part of what Imperial planners conceived as a series of strongpoints that would form a defensive â€śbeltâ€ť against US and British intervention while the Japanese Army and Navy completed the conquest of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The pre-emptive strike on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and the invasion of Wake and the Philippines, along with the push into Singapore and Hong Kong, effectively eliminated any Allied ability to oppose Japanese expansion for many months. But not as many months as the Japanese required.

In January of 1942, Japan occupied Rabaul on New Britain, eventually building yet another very strong Naval and air installation whose position was problematic to the Allies in maintaining communication with Australia. The severing of the very tenuous line of communication between the United States and Australia was the goal of a thrust across the northern islands and waters of New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomons. The Japanese plan, code-named â€śFSâ€ť, was an attempt to put a stranglehold on Australia as the staging area for the buildup of US forces in the Pacific.

Barracks ship sunk in Sydney Harbor from Japanese submarine

On 3 May, 1942, the Japanese occupied Tulagi (3), and began construction of a seaplane base and supporting infrastructure that would imperil Australia, New Zealand, and the New Hebrides, Americaâ€™s main link to her allies still in the fight in the Pacific.

Concurrent with the occupation of Tulagi, the Combined Fleet thrust southeast with the intent of capturing Port Moresby, on the southern tip of New Guinea, gravely threatening not only the lines of communication with Australia, but Australia herself. The Japanese thrust was parried by US Navy forces under Admiral Fletcher at The Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 and 8 May, 1942. The battle was damaging to both sides, and included the sinking of the large US carrier Lexington and severe damage to Yorktown, and the loss of nearly 70 aircraft. (The Japanese efforts to take Port Moresby shifted to an advance over the forbidding Owen-Stanley mountain range via the Kokoda Trail in central New Guinea, which would result in a severe setback for Japan and heavy casualties among her forces.)

In early June, Nimitzâ€™s gamble regarding Japanese intentions paid off with the decisive victory at Midway, where smaller US forces inflicted devastating damage to the Japanese invasion fleet, sinking four fleet carriers for the sinking of patched-up Yorktown. Plan â€śFSâ€ť was cancelled, as the Japanese were weakened by the loss of so many aircraft and trained pilots, more than 400 in all, and five carriers, at Coral Sea and Midway.(4) Though the victory at Midway went far toward evening the odds between the Japanese and the US Pacific Fleet, the advantage in combat power, surface and air, remained squarely with the Japanese. However, Midway provided an opportunity for the Allies to seize the initiative in the Pacific. Admiral Ernest King demanded action to do just that.

Elsewhere in the summer of 1942, the United States had been deeply disappointed that Britain did not believe a cross-channel invasion of Europe was possible during that year. The British experience in France in 1940, and throughout the North Africa campaign, had showed what a skilled and powerful enemy the German foe was. Churchill and the Brits, with the debacle of Dieppe fresh in their minds, dissuaded their overeager American allies from the foolishness of attempting a 1942 cross-Channel invasion. The Americans saw the opportunity to turn more of a focus to the Pacific Theater, at least temporarily, with the much smaller North Africa landings taking the place of the desired France adventure. The timetable of a thrust by the Allies in the Pacific scheduled for the autumn of 1942 was moved up. Following Midway, the Japanese were off balance, stretched thinly through Rabaul and New Britain. Admiral King demanded an offensive beginning in the mid-summer of 1942. (5)

But for the US planners, the question was: where to strike? Some time in June, 1942, Japanese engineers had crossed the Sealark Channel to the larger island to the south, Guadalcanal. Specifically, the engineers surveyed the northern coastal plane of the island, and found it suitable for the construction of an airfield. If such a facility could be constructed there, combined with the harbor at Tulagi built up to provide an anchorage for Japanese warships, a powerful base akin to Rabaul would sit directly astride of the lines of communication between the United States and Australia. Such a situation would make the predicted American buildup of combat forces in Australia a slow, difficult, and costly process, just as â€śFSâ€ť had hoped to do.

In the Pacific, both MacArthur and Nimitz thought it prudent to secure and defend the lines of communication with Australia, and evict the Japanese from the areas that threatened those lines. MacArthurâ€™s first suggestion, a direct assault on Rabaul, was quickly dismissed as unfeasible once cooler heads prevailed. Instead, a thrust into the lower Solomons, to include seizure of Tulagi and Santa Cruz, would be the first step in reducing the threat to Australia. From there, the effort would include the recapture of the northern coast of New Guinea, and eventually, reduction and capture of Rabaul. On 10 July, Nimitz issued his operations order for the attack and seizure of Guadalcanal and Tulagi. The operationâ€™s codename was WATCHTOWER, and was scheduled for execution on 1 August, 1942.

In mid-July, a USAAF B-17 reconnaissance aircraft carrying Col Merrill Twining, 1st Marine Division D-3 (operations officer) overflew Lunga Point, but could not verify the Japanese airfield construction efforts reported by the network of Coastwatchers that kept the Japanese under constant observation.(6) But photography of the beaches surrounding Lunga Point provided the assurance that those beaches were without obstacles, and suitable for an amphibious assault. Detailed planning then began in earnest for WATCHTOWER.

And so it would be that this as-yet incomplete airfield on the coastal plain, surrounded by jungle, on an island nobody had ever heard of, in an island chain few could find on a map, would become the focus of a massive struggle which would ebb and flow across the skies, land, and seas for eight months. The campaign would decide whether the Americans were able to seize and retain the initiative in the Pacific, or whether the Japanese, after the briefest of pauses, would continue what had seemed an inexorable string of conquests to the final defeat of the United States and her allies.

The names and places on the island itself, and those of the surrounding islands and waters: Guadalcanal, Savo, Ironbottom Sound, Tassafaronga, Edsonâ€™s Ridge, Henderson Field, The Slot, Santa Cruz, Tulagi, Ternaru, Matanikau, Lunga Point. Unknown but for a â€śconfluence of eventsâ€ť, those places and the men who fought there with such grim determination, have been immortalized in the legends of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

Related

I thought myself well versed in naval history…I was wrong…again great job.

â€śA fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.â€ť
…William Shakespeare

Chuck Hill

URR thanks. Excellent.

Mr Pedant

The debacle at Dieppe couldn’t have been ‘fresh in the minds’ of anyone during the planning of Watchtower. It didn’t happen until 19 August 1942.

UltimaRatioReg

Mister Pedant!

Great name, by the way.

You are correct, poorly worded in the text to say the least. The Brits had actually pulled the plug on the raid that was supposed to happen in late June/early July 42. For some reason, they re-energized the raid, and that led to the August catastrophe. I’d love to know why the Brits thought it feasible six weeks after they had seemed to decide it wasn’t. But likely a topic for a different blog.

http://abriefhistory.org Michael Kennedy

There is a school of thought that blames Mountbatten for the delay followed by the attack when the Germans had been alerted.

UltimaRatioReg

Michael,

I have read such, and my admiration of Mountbatten aside, there seemed to be some credence to it. The other reason I heard was that after cancellation of SLEDGEHAMMER, WSC wanted to do SOMETHING, so Dieppe was back on. But Mr. Pedant’s point is a good one. The way I worded the text, I made it sound like Dieppe had already happened, and it had not. Only the on-again/off-again planning debacle.

saul

quoted–As author Eric Hammel states; â€śThere was no reason inherent in the value of the Bismarcks and the Solomons that made them worth a fight. Only a confluence of events would make them a focal point for a desperate gamble.â€ť(1)–

This is probably the most interesting part of much military history, as well as life itself–in that the combination of events, as well as their timing, near dictates the future. The fact that this becomes a “desperate gamble” means that either it throws entities through such loops that they must scramble to respond in the wake of the events (and their lack of preparation), or that the event was so improbable that it could have and would have never been planned for. I believe that the latter is more common.
Great article.

CINCLAX

Why Guadalcanal?

Kingâ€™s resolution in forcing through what would become Operation Watchtower was probably the most important strategic decision of the Pacific War.

At a time when the Roosevelt administration was advocating a â€śGermany Firstâ€ť stanceâ€”and being continually pressured by the English to do so, King stood firm for increased Navy involvement in the Pacific. There, the Navy and Marine Corps would be the principal players, whereas they would always play a marginal role in the European Theatre.

As soon as air reconnaissance revealed the Japanese building an airfield on Guadalcanal, King knew that it was time for the United States to take the offensive, even though the Navy was still only barely strong enough to do so. Thus the selection of Guadalcanal (and Tulagi) made his plan completely defensible to critics because clearly something had to be done to protect the vital sea routes to Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. Indirectly, the Solomons Campaign also helped protect Port Moresby.

Most importantly, the selection of Guadalcanal was a stroke of genius because possession of Henderson Field, that unsinkable aircraft carrier, forced the Japanese to repeatedly counter-attack to protect their New Britain bastion at Rabaul (about 600 nm distant), as well as Kavieng on New Ireland and their growing number of bases on Bougainville, Ballale and the Shortlands. And counter-attacking got to be very expensive for the Japanese as Americans learned the ropes of surface warfare. The 17-month Solomons Campaign would cost the IJN some 40 destroyers, plus innumerable transports and landing barges, as well as gutting army and navy air squadrons and their almost irreplaceable experienced pilots.

Look at a map of Japanese conquests by mid-1942. Hanging there on the southeast corner of the Co-Prosperity Sphere are the Solomons. This meant that Japanese counter-attacks and re-supply missions would come only from the northwest, down the choke point of the Slot, and greatly simplifying American reconnaissance efforts. At the time, it was the only realistic place to attack.

UltimaRatioReg

CINCLAX,

It was a heck of a gutsy assertion by Ernie King! He sensed an opportunity when a lot of others didn’t, and risked what little we had there to put the brakes on the Japanese in the Solomons.

In retrospect, because it turned out successfully, sometimes we assume we couldn’t have failed. The margins were razor-thin. As Wellington said of Waterloo, â€śIt has been a damned serious business… The nearest-run-thing you ever saw in your life, by God!â€ť

Had the good Duke not already used the line, Vandegrift and Turner certainly could have in reference to the Solomons.

Byron

And this tends to butress my position that the Solomans Islands campaign was at least as important to eventual victory as the Battle of Midway Island.

And don’t forget the lost heavy cruiser and the BB sunk by Washington and a carrier

UltimaRatioReg

But Charlton Heston wasn’t in a movie about The Solomons!

Grandpa Bluewater

Look at the bright side. Neither has Tom Cruise. Or anybody from Oceans 11,12,or 13.

Byron

John Basilone was there. That counts for a helluva lot to me.

UltimaRatioReg

“John Basilone was there.”

He sure was. As was Puller, Hannekken, Edson, Walt, Al Schmid, Mitchell Page, and scores of other legends.